In a region where supply chains increasingly rely on speed, capacity, and logistical reliability, cross-border rail is consolidating its position as a key component for sustaining trade between Mexico and the United States. However, while the volume of goods continues to grow, railroads on both sides of the border face challenges in infrastructure, streamlining border crossings, and developing new services to meet market demands .
Carlos Barreda Westphal, director of Ferroviaria.mx , points out that some bottlenecks facing rail transport between the two countries are related to customs administration, which offers limited service hours and days, increasingly more documents to present, new rules every year, saturated border bridges, postponement of the opening of new crossings, interruptions in the network due to political and social events, and so on.
Therefore, he believes it is necessary for Mexico to build and extend border yards at other crossings such as Nogales and El Paso, as has been done in Nuevo Laredo and Rio Escondido, and perhaps reopen the crossing at Ojinaga and Presidio, Texas.
“There is a significant trade deficit for Mexico in goods transported by rail, and this has always been an area of opportunity for concessionaires. Thousands of railcars return empty to the United States. Therefore, the government should encourage more exporting industries to use rail. I believe the main challenge today lies in the traffic safety that must accompany the infrastructure, and this must come from authorities at all three levels of government. A policy is urgently needed that truly deters the crimes committed daily on federal highways, including train robberies (vandalism), track blockades due to union demands, and the boarding of trains by migrants heading to the northern border,” he commented in an interview.
According to the latest figures published by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) , the cumulative volume on Mexican railroads during the first 36 weeks of 2026 was 913,384 railcars and intermodal containers and trailers, an increase of 7.1% compared to the same period last year .
Meanwhile, the Agency for Trains and Integrated Public Transport (ATTRAPI) reports that, during June of this year, the total value of rail exports increased by 14.2% year-on-year . “With this result, the cumulative total from January to June reached its highest level since records began (2007), establishing a new all-time high.”
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